Zoos no longer safe haven for animals?

LUCKNOW: The attack by a pack of stray dogs led to the death of 31 blackbucks at Kanpur zoo on early Sunday. The postmortem revealed that most of the deaths were caused by heart attack. The forest officials and wildlife experts say that blackbucks have tender hearts and can suffer heart attack when in panic or distress.

While the high number of deaths is shocking, the incident also raises serious concerns about the safety of animals lodged within the guarded premises of zoos. It needs to be probed how stray dogs reached the "protected" enclosure of blackbucks at Kanpur zoo.

After visiting the Kanpur zoo on Wednesday, principal secretary forest VN Garg did not rule out sabotage in the incident. Kanpur zoo has reported such incidents in the past where animals were poisoned or the boundary wall deliberately damaged to allow the "unchecked" entry of outsiders.

The blackbucks, protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Act, 1972, are known to be tender hearts. "Whenever we go for an exchange of animals, we avoid transportation of blackbucks since they are tender hearted animals," said a forest officer. Taking this into consideration, the entry of three stray dogs in the enclosure and their subsequent attack led to shock death of the panic-stricken antelopes. The enclosure where the incident took place was not covered from all the sides and gave an easy access to the ferocious attackers.

A section of forest officers, however, says the incident occurred due to laxity of Kanpur zoo administration. Sources said that stray dogs had been sneaking in and out of the zoo premises for past two weeks but the administration overlooked the issue. When the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) guidelines do not permit even the entry of pets in the zoo, stray dogs loitering unchecked was a big lapse on the part of zoo administration. Kanpur zoo has a drainage outlet passing through it. Though it's closed from the iron mesh, there have been incidents in the past where stray animals sneaked their way into the zoo premises through it. "It needs constant maintenance," said an officer.

In the current incident, however, it was the broken boundary wall which gave an easy passage to the stray attackers. The zoo administration had sought funds for its repair but it was the delay in the fund-release which kept the zoo administration from repairing it. "We have taken necessary action against those found guilty," said PCCF, UP, JS Asthana.